Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday September 23, 2004 @04:31PM
from the stuff-to-think-about dept.

Tod Landis writes "Responding to George Bush's statement that he will preserve executive power for his "predecessors", I've assembled a
collection of quotes from those predecessors. Most saw executive power differently..."

What, has slashdot become so anti-Bush that we're taking plain text documents written by the submitter as "news" in the politics section now?

While I admit this is a good resource, the predecessor mistake was *YEARS* ago- this is hardly new or any more relevant than yet another "Bush is an idiot" post. Those of us who care about intelligence in a president already know Bush is an idiot- those who don't care just like the fact that they've got a president with the same intelligence and learning disabilities that they have. This issue isn't going to change anybody's vote one way or the other.

I can't find one. But then again, I can't find a reason to vote *for* Bush at all, and so I won't be. I'm sure there is one- probably in the broadband promises. But I'm not sure. Hmm- that's a hard one. Why would a nerd vote for a man who confesses that he's functionally illiterate?

Yeah, this has to be the dumbest story I've seen in awhile. Especially since Congress did approve the war. Tod Landis wrote, "Before 1950, no President or member of Congress believed that the executive branch could wage war without debate in Congress, when such debate was possible." But we know the Congress did debate it, and most of Congress voted for it (including Kerry), and it was passed. This is just retarded.

If I hire Dick Cheney to tell you and 74 of your friends that some person is going to bomb Washington with anthrax drones that don't acutally exist, aluminum centrifuge tubes that don't actually exist, and yellowcake from Nigeria that doesn't actually exist, and you all vote to bomb that person first, does that mean you authorized it?

YES, it does- and it means you're as bad at checking your facts as Dan Rather.

That's just my neaty-keano marketing name for a collection of freeware applications from various authors that I recommend all of my Windows customers install. It's not entirely comprehensive- if it was it would have AVG's antivirus scanner in it- and it needs updating, but when I originally created it it included the latest versions of ZoneAlarm, AdAware, HijackThis, and Spambayes, as well as a variety of other special-purpose scanners and Windows keep-it-safe utilities. I wouldn't recommend it at the mom

Like I said- haven't had time recently and at least two of those are outdated and one more needs to be removed and replaced with a more general anti-virus program, if I can find a good freeware one (everything in that list is either Open Source or Freeware. The out of date programs are AdAware (AAW6) and Zone Alarm Free (version 5.1.011))

Sorry if I implied that there was something wrong with the kit, but I figured if people knew what was in it they'd be less likely to slashdot your bandwidth.AVP by grisoft is a good antivirus for windows. I've used it for a couple years and been safe. Just remember to change the default setting of checking every 14 days for updates to every 1 day.

Learning Disability != moron, it just appears so. And it's more the editors than the actual people who read slashdot.

Finally, when the new Politics Forum was announced, it was promised that the editors would be Fair and Balanced (tm, Fox News). Five pro-Kerry stories to every pro-Bush story is not balanced, no matter how you look at it.

Five pro-Kerry stories to every pro-Bush story is not balanced, no matter how you look at it.

It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush. Or, put in the negative light of most political stories, five bad things said about Bush to every one anti-Kerry statement doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is specifically attacking Bush.

It might mean that most Slashdotters don't think it makes sense to post another story quest

It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush.

And who makes that call? The election, by all scientific polling standards, is just about even at this point. Statements like this are what kill me about Democrats...they think that since THEY hate Bush so much, nobody has good reasons for voting for him.

On character alone I would vote for Bush because, while people love to criticize him on malapropisms, he's a regular gu

It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush.

And who makes that call? The election, by all scientific polling standards, is just about even at this point. Statements like this are what kill me about Democrats...they think that since THEY hate Bush so much, nobody has good reasons for voting for him.

Choices made by the general population shouldn't necessarily be mistaken for an indication of quality. A correlation ma

Except...for both the Afghani Theater and the Iraqi theater Bush DID go to Congress and got approval. Sure, there's some argument as to approval for what and under what conditions on Iraq, but approval from Congress WAS sought and obtained. So all that we're left with is Bush protecting priviledge for his "predicessors"....

Actually, to be fair, Roosevelt started the doctrine that troops could be deployed by the president without congress' approval. He did ask congress about sending the fleet around the globe, but was rejected. Well, he decided he could deploy them anyway. When they got half-way around the world and ran out of money, he went back to congress with "Well, how about some money to bring the fleet back?". Of course it was approved.

Truman presided over the first major armed conflict that did not involve a declaration of war, by convening a UN security council meeting and immediately committing troops to the conflict. This after the secretary of state declaring the Korea really did not fall into the US's "sphere of protection" in the east-asian region.

Truman also first got the country involved in Vietnam, after the French got over their heads in the conflict and asked the US for help. By 1954, 80% of the war costs were borne the the US.

Vietnam became a major conflict during Johnson's administration, as he reinstated the draft and dramatically increased the commitment of troops.

WWII was the last US conflict that involved a formal declaration of war by congress. IMHO, it should not be OK for a president to commit troops to ANY conflict outside of our own borders without a declaration of war from congress. Don't expect ANY president to follow this doctrine.

The Eisenhower quote is interesting, as he was the last president that recognized deploying troops without congressional authority was not intended by the constitution. He was the LAST president to recognize this (and probably always will be).

Actually, to be completely fair, it was Thomas Jefferson who first deployed U.S. troops without a declaration of war when he sent U.S. Marines and Naval vessels against North African pirates that were threatening U.S. shipping interests in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic.

Interestingly, it was Eisenhower who sent the first U.S. troops into Vietnam as advisers. Our first casualty came in 1959 during a training session for ARVN forces when some old and unstable explosives went off in the hands of a U.S.

I'm no fan of the Dub, but any collection of quotes can easily manipulated to suit your viewpoint via selection bias. It would be better to examine the actions previous presidents took with regard to defending the presidential "turf."

...Or was it the logical policy of a government whose main interest was not stopping Fascism but advancing the imperial interests of the United States? For those interests, in the thirties, an anti-Soviet policy seemed best. Later, when Japan and Germany threatened U.S. world interests, a pro-Soviet, anti-Nazi policy became preferable.
*****
It was not Hitler's attacks on the Jews that brought the United States into World War II, a

Since 1950 it has been assumed that declaring war is red tape and can be bypassed.

All laws are just red tape which can be bypassed. We attribute character to those who choose to not just bypass them.

Back in the 80's, some news weekly ran a story about drug dealers in a major city, and how the size of their "businesses" (measured by gross volume) would make some of them qualified to run medium-to-large businesses. That statement stuck with me, because it completely missed the point. Sure it's easier to

You're absolutely right. Almost every member of the US Congress voted to give the President a blank check on this issue. Regardless of declarations, they granted him the power to mobilize soldiers and conduct combat as he saw fit. The President took us into a needless war. Boo on him. Congress allowed him to do it, boo on everybody.

Just because you have a power doesn't mean you have the ability to hand that power over to another person. The US Constitution is, AFAIK, silent on the issue of whether Congress can delegate its power to declare war. Public officials or bodies charged to carry out such important and solemn constitutional duties shouldn't be allowed to pass the buck so easily.

Here is the full text of the quote from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20010129-7.html [whitehouse.gov]:
Q: Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for mysel

I'm sitting here with a book on my desk call "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents" by Richard E. Neustadt. Perhaps you should read it. It's very easy to pick & choose random quotes & show an agreement that's really not there. Give me a few minutes & I could create a list of quotes that shows that Bush has a very conservative view of President Power.

In case you're seriously interested, a few other good books are"The Paradox of the American Presidency" by Thomas E. Croninand"The Ferocious Engine of Democracy" (2 volumes) by Michael P. Riccards.

How about some anti-Kerry stories? It's not as though the Democrats are angels.Eisenhower may have started the Vietnam War, but Kennedy got the US much more involved. Kennedy also approved the Bay of Pigs, and several assassination attempts on Castro.Carter supported terrorism in Central America just as much as his predecessors and successors.Clinton illegally invaded Serbia (without Security Council consent). And Clinton was bombing Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War right through the 90's.But I gues

Doesn't CmdrTaco have a personal blog somewhere to bash Bush instead of doing so on what was once a good news site?

Not only are the quotes out of context, but they are used in error. [jsonline.com] Furthermore, congress hasn't declared war since WWII, so it's hard to pretend that Bush doesn't have any precedent if he did go in without approval. Of course, there was approval so this whole "news story" is a farce. Way to go and pull a Dan Rather. At least he finally had to apologize.

mod parent up, please. I seriously thought the Politics sectioon might be good, but it's become a farce. This one's pretty ridiculous, though not quite as much as the "Republicans are going to outlaw elections" story the other week (submitted by "Marxist Hacker", of course).

I rarely complain about Slashdot articles.. dupes, spelling and grammar errors, whatever, those aren't a big deal. But this is just too much.

We need to re-instate congress into the war approval process. The reason the executive branch has been able to use this power since WWII is because no president has been punished for its abuse. I'm not saying that we should punish this president for going into war, as we had plenty of precident to use force without a declaration of war, but perhaps this country needs to look into stiffer punishments for presidents who use force without declarations of war.

Don't get all worked up. Dan Rather and CBS fell for a made up news story because they were happy to run anything that bashed Bush. CmdrTaco, which is perhaps you Mr Anonymous Coward, seems to be on a similar roll himself today.

"Finally, there wasn't approval of any of Bush II's wars, as congress simply gave him the right to go to war."

Um, what?! What a hoot! So you are saying there wasn't approval for the war, because congress gave him the right to go to war. Stellar logic my friend!

So fix cars for a living, I bring you my car and say I give you the authority to fix my car. So you replace the A-Frame, and the linkage, when I come back and complain I did not approve you fixing the A-frame and the linkage am I right?

If you gave authorization to "fix my car" then yes, replacing the A-Frame and linkage was authorized.If you had said "Fix the alternator" then no it wouldn't be.Congress and the house authorized nothing. They passed the power to make the choice to invade or not invade to the president, so the analogy doesn't fit.

I agree. The source article is flamebait and not news for nerds. Out of context usage of quotes to mislead people is not news, and most nerds should be intelligent enough to realize that such quotes have an information value of zero.

Where is the metamoderator option to mark CmdrTaco as being tediously left leaning with a terrible taste in stories?

Notice that there are no quotes that occurred in the last 30 years. I'm pretty sure that when Bush refers to his predecessors, he's thinking more of Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter, not Washington/Adams/Jefferson.

Notice that there are no quotes that occurred in the last 30 years. I'm pretty sure that when Bush refers to his predecessors, he's thinking more of Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter, not Washington/Adams/Jefferson.

I think he, Bush, isn't as familiar with the first group as he is with the second. Congress alone has the power to declare war, that's why you see modern American wars called anything but that. Police Actions? Use it in a sentence? Yes, history recalls the tragic mistake of the "Vietnam Police A

Now that I've gone back and reread the "story" write-up, I realize that the main point is apparently that Bush misspoke when he said predecessors and meant postdecessors (or whatever the word would be).

The President has the power to write "Executive Orders". These were meant to be used as quick action rules to act on certain situations before congress and the Senate could debate and decide on a proper strategy (because committees are slow).

Congress has been trying to restrict those abilities and THAT'S what Bush is defending.

WAR POWERS (which W is NOT talking about in his quote) are a still hotly debated topic. Executive Orders can be used to facilitate combat (as has been done with Iraq) but the President has combat powers above and beyond the Executive Orders so restricting those doesn't necessarily stop the other.

Bush is not the first to have done this. Clinton did it with Bosnia, Bush Sr. did it with Panama, Reagan did it with Grenada, etc;

The whole power structure of wars, waging wars, military action, etc is still a hotly debated topic in congress and this article does no justice in bringing out the real issues.

No, as pointed out by this post [slashdot.org], he was defending the executive power to grant presidential pardons:

Q Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving e

Though I agree that this article is rather lame, Bush is *not* simply trying to defend his ability to write executive orders or his war-declaration powers (which are in fact hotly debated). His administration has a clear policy of silence on matters where it should be open. One o the most obnoxious examples of this is in Cheney's refusal to hand over the conversations on energy policy with the Enron folks. The Bush Administration claims it has executive privilege on those documents, no matter their impropri

Not that editors would ever listen to any readers, but -- if you're going to have a politics section, how about using it to focus on issues of technology, science, engineering, space, education,... instead of just dumping a bucket of gasoline on everyone every few hours? Lord knows, I've spent enough of the last few weeks squabbling about vertical spacing on 1970's IBM Selectrics and even I recognize the last two stories as pointless, content-free flamebait.

A confused George Bush once said "I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for my predecessors as well". Here is a sampler of what those predecessors had to say about the war powers.

And I have gone to the trouble of examining each quote only to find it misapplied.

"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure. "
George Washington

You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?

"Congress must be called upon to take [reprisal on a nation]; the right of reprisal being expressly lodged with them by the Constitution, and not with the Executive".
Thomas Jefferson

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events... is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the Government"
James Madison

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems in necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure."
Abraham Lincoln

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done..."
Grover Cleveland

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"The remedy for this state of things can only be supplied by Congress, since the Constitution has confided to that body alone the power to make war."
James Buchanan

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"The issue [of war with Spain] is now with the Congress.... Prepared to execute every obligation imposed upon me by the Constitution and the law, I await your action"
William McKinley

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

"The assumption by the press that I contemplate intervention in Mexico soil to protect American lives is of course gratuitous, because I seriously doubt whether I have such authority under any circumstances, and if I had I would not exercise it without congressional approval"
Howard Taft

"You mean that Bush should have... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean... like he did in Iraq and Afg

authorized Bush to go after Iraq. He did not make the choice on his own. The House of Representatives voted 296-133 in favor and the Senate voted 77-23 in favor. How was this a unilateral decision on Bush's part?

Big time. Anyone with any brains whatsoever could see what Bush had planned. And how his administration used politics to get most people to support it.

"Moreover, even if we accept Kerry's argument that it came as a surprise to him that Bush would use any excuse to invade Iraq, it seems rather dishonest to vote to give the President blanket authority to declare war and then complain when that decision is made."

Despite my consummate dislike for Bush (Sr, Jr, whatever), I don't read the same "Bushism" into his statement. You have to consider that Presidents, whether in power or out of power, have quite a lot of executive protection that extends well past their term(s) in office. I suggest that perhaps Bush was simply stating that he intended to protect these extended post-term executive powers. This is actually a fairly common statement, since the current president would want the same treatment once he/she is no l

I am getting quite tired of the baseless claims that people are making. We complain and complain because of the poison that is in politics. Well, let's get our act together and fix it.

Starting right now, let's all be a lot more civil.

Despite our political differences, we are all countrymen, in the national sense and in the sense that we all live in this world. We should respect each other and never ever attack someone's character. Let their actions speak for their character. People will be smart enough to judge for themselves. This includes everyone from John Kerry to George Bush to Saddam Hussein down to everybody in this forum.

We are all able to share our opinions. When we do, let's be clear by prefacing such statements with "I believe" or "I think" or "My opinion is". Let's never ever try to represent opinion as fact.

When we do discuss fact and logic, let's be very careful to get things right the first time. Quote your sources accurately.

The way you attack factual and logical arguments is by attacking the individual claims. For instance, if I claimed that Sadr City is now peaceful, you would attack that claim by showing me reports that it is not. You wouldn't attack that claim by calling me a liar.

If you want to end the poison in politics, you end it with yourself first. Here are my points again.

Not "I feel that...". Rather, "I think that". Opinions are not feelings. Emotions are feelings. People say "I feel that..." when they know their opinions are on shaky ground, because people don't have to justify "feelings". You're entitled to feel however you want to about something and there's no wrong way to "feel". But thoughts and opinions can be disputed and shown to be wrong, so people try to let their thoughts off the

Like a lot of that story, things are taken out of context. I also believed this was some Bush slip-of-the-tongue util I saw the actual post here. He really was referring to Clinton, and unless he expects Clinton to be re-elected after him, Clinton is a predecessor!

Actually boomer = nuclear missile submarine. Like the Typhoon (remember "the hunt for Red October?). However the grandparent is still BSing; the cold war is over and the policies that made sense then are no longer sound.

Nothing, and I do mean _nothing_, the president of the united states can do in five minutes will make the slightest difference in the "war on terror". The conflict at the moment is over civilians launching terror attacks against targets on US (and other nations) soil. Really the people

Nothing, and I do mean _nothing_, the president of the united states can do in five minutes will make the slightest difference in the "war on terror".

Au Contraire Monfrer! Our glorious leader spent the five minutes after he learned we were under attack reading "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren. The teacher has gone on record as saying he made the right decision to continue reading, because if he had jumped into action right then and there, the children might have been scared! All you cheese eating surre

Okay, so there's a bunch of quotes from previous United States Presidents about how the president can only send troops to war if Congress has approved such military action.

Exactly as they did in the case of Iraq.

As one Senator in particular put it, in a September 2002 New York times op-ed, "If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement... even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we

first week of October, 2001, as soon as it became apparent that bin Laden was behind 9-11.

It became apparent that bin Laden was behind 9-11 at about 9:00 AM on September 11th, and everybody who was the least bit familiar with bin Laden at the time knew it immediately when that second plane went crashing into the towers. Unfortunately, there were far too few such folks on hand in the Bush Administration at the time, and none of them among Bush's pets, the neocons....